The Tragically Hip are practically Canada’s national band, but they’re virtually unknown elsewhere. Today we’re aiming to change that by covering one of their best albums, Fully Completely. Not only is this album packed full of references to Canadian history and culture, it’s also packed full of excellent rock songs. Our goal for this episode is to convert all of you into Hip fans, so come for the terrific music, stay for the Canadian history lesson!
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Often criminally overlooked among the ’90s indie-rock canon, Helium’s The Magic City is one of the most colorful and unpredictable albums to come out of Matador Records’ reign as kings of the genre. On their second and final album, Mary Timony and crew cast aside the fuzzy, lo-fi guitars for bright, lush arrangements that explore influences as diverse as medieval folk, progressive rock, and video game music. Climb aboard your mighty unicorn and follow Dan, Amanda, and Rich into the cosmos as we travel through this musically rich landscape of aging astronauts, dragons, and Chamberlins.
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The 2003 Radiohead album Hail to the Thief was widely praised as a great album upon its initial release, but starting a few years later it became a consistent target of criticism from the band and fans alike. In this episode, John leads a discussion with Will, Mike, and Phil in which they try to make the case that this album, in which Radiohead largely consolidates the different approaches of its post-Bends work into something new and yet still something recognizably Radiohead, deserves a significantly better reputation than as “the Radiohead album with too many songs.” Come for the serious discussion of Radiohead’s take on the Iraq War and society’s failings, stay for the recurring sex jokes and Homestar Runner references.
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Pink Floyd is not exactly obscure, but it’s true that their pre-Dark Side of the Moon albums don’t get as much attention as they deserve. Rather than simply being the lead-up to their more well-known material, their first few albums are fascinating, groundbreaking, and democratically weird. Pink Floyd was a band that just wanted to make cool, interesting sounds that nobody had ever made before, and with Meddle, they succeeded spectacularly - in fact, this is where you’ll find some of their very best material. Come along with us as we fearlessly cut this album into little pieces.
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The Grateful Dead are such a ubiquitous cultural institution that many people don’t engage with their music - it’s frequently written off as slow, lazy music for stoners. Well, Phil isn’t a stoner at all, and he’s here to tell you all about why the Grateful Dead are great. While the group is perhaps best known for their marathon live sets and endless catalog of concert recordings, Phil decided to focus on 1970’s “American Beauty” - the album generally considered to be the band’s best studio LP. Short on jams and long on great songs and fantastic harmony vocals, American Beauty is a folk-and-country tinged masterpiece and is a wonderful entry point for beginning your voyage into the world of the Grateful Dead.
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HO-HO-HO, we’re HU-HU-HUNGRY like the wolf! Discord & Rhyme has held off on its namesake album for far too long, so Rich, Amanda, Phil, and returning guest Libby Cudmore are throwing a festive ‘80s holiday party with Duran Duran’s 1982 album Rio. The British music and fashion press were obsessed with the emerging glitter-and-puffy-shirts New Romantic scene when Duran Duran first hit the stage with their self-titled debut in 1981. The quintet was immediately branded as a “haircut band” and written off by the critical elite, and a series of exotic videos filmed in Antigua and Sri Lanka only reinforced this vapid public image. But Rich argues that their second album Rio, recorded during a hot streak for the band, is musically sophisticated, artistically triumphant, and makes for a fun discussion with some mulled wine.
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There are plenty of love albums out there and plenty of breakup albums, but apart from Marvin Gaye's fascinating Here, My Dear, how many romantic spite albums can you think of? It's a tough balance to strike, but Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle has created likely the ideal such creature on Tallahassee: a schadenfreude- and gin-sodden indie-rock epitaph for the Alpha Couple, two characters he'd been working with for years and whose relationship only got less healthy with time. Join Will, Dan, Rich, and returning guest Brent Heard, won't you, as we don our emotional headlamps and rotgut-protection boots and investigate the open throat of the Alpha Couple's cellar door?
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Once one of the biggest bands in the world, Def Leppard is now a bit of a joke among “serious” rock fans. But do they deserve that? Amanda thinks not, and does her best to convince Rich, Mike, and Phil that Hysteria is a truly excellent album. Even if you’re not on board with Mutt Lange’s super-shiny production, this is a terrific bunch of songs, and very much worth any music fan’s time. Yes, even “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” Especially “Pour Some Sugar On Me.”
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In this episode, Ben leads everyone through an album nobody would have pegged him as loving (since it's not by Elvis), 1967's The Velvet Underground and Nico. Produced (sort of) by Andy Warhol and featuring singing (sort of) by German model Nico, the album's noisy, abrasive rock music - sweetened by Lou Reed's reliable pop instincts - has influenced generations of bands. But is it any fun to listen to? Ben says heck yes, Will rolls his eyes, and Amanda and Phil bring some sorely needed nuance to the table. There's definitely Discord here - probably inevitable whenever Lou Reed is involved.
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ULLA!!! In this episode Discord & Rhyme tackles “Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds” from 1978, an art-rock/disco musical based on the 1898 H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds and which John posits as the most ‘70s album ever made. Featuring an unforgettable spoken word performance by Richard Burton, as well as an absolutely fascinating who’s who collection of prominent late-’70s vocalists from the worlds of rock music and musicals, this album has gone down in history in the United States as a cult obscurity, but is one of the 40 best-selling albums of all time in the United Kingdom. In this episode John leads Amanda, Phil, and Rich in a deep-dive examination of this album, with particular focus on the various leitmotifs used in creating the music, but also focuses on the question of how such a strange album, made by somebody best known for writing British advertising jingles and television themes, became such a lasting cultural phenomenon in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking nations outside the United States and Canada.
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